Strong and Moving!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The happiness and the sanity of a W.W.II vet is destroyed when he returns home and finds his girl in the arms of another at the town's annual dance. Outraged, he kills them with a pitchfork, and the town does not hold the dance again for 35 years. When the vet hears about the dance being resurrected, it stirs up those bitter painful memories once again, so he comes back to do a little more killing...This is one of those film that have been mimicked so many times, if you haven't seen the original before the slew of re-imaginings/side-quels/homages, you may lose the overall effectiveness of the original.Much like I did.For me, it's pretty perfunctory stuff, with the added bonus of some wonderful make up by Tom Savini. But other than that, it's just a case of teen girls running down a corridor and reaching a locked door, while being prowled by the bad guy in Hellboy.The cast are fine, they do their job as you'd expect, it can be slightly tense in some places.It's my bad really for not seeing it any sooner, as I'd probably regard it a lot higher than I actually do.But I will give it something to its credit, it hasn't been remade as of yet.If you are just starting out with horror films, and you want a good old fashioned stalk n' slash horror, you'd be good to catch this as soon as possible.You'll appreciate it a lot more than I did.

An often overlooked entry in the early 1980s slasher genre, "The Prowler" (otherwise known as "Rosemary's Killer" in other territories) benefits a great deal from the unrelenting gore and inventive death scenes delivered by special effects maestro Tom Savini (Dawn Of The Dead, Friday The 13th) and in the surprisingly solid direction of Joseph Zito, who would later go on to deliver one of the most memorable (and bloody) installments in the Friday The 13th franchise, "The Final Chapter."The film opens up with a solider being informed via Dear John letter that his lover is breaking up with him. Unsurprisingly, said lover ends up being sliced and diced along with her new beau at a small town graduation dance. It is then, 35 years later, that the action picks up again. Pam Dawson (the lovely Vicky Dawson) has staged the first graduation dance held in her town since that fateful night. Unfortunately, a mysterious man in combat gear brandishing a rather large knife sets out to crash the good time and, as one can predict, mayhem ensues.Unlike most slashers that came in its wake, "The Prowler" is rather humorless and goes about its business in a cold and calculated manner. The death scenes are at times cruel and often prolonged, which even today might be hard for the average viewer to stomach. The cast is full of mostly unknowns (save for Lawrence Tierney in a throwaway role) so it's up to Savini and his glorious special effects to deliver, and boy do they. Almost 35 years later, his effects still hold up and cut right to the bone. Zito directs with just the right amount of tension and frames everything just right so that you truly get the feeling that The Prowler could be hiding in any corner of the screen. Things are kept mostly lean and mean, making "The Prowler" a movie that you truly won't be able to shake for days, even if you think you've seen it all already.

I have not seen nor do I plan to see a snuff film but from what I've heard about them, The Prowler (1981) is pretty close. The aforementioned director, Joseph Zito, plays out these death scenes as if he were getting real pleasure from them. It's scary and uncomfortable to watch to say the least and I can't think of any other slasher movie to come close. With others, there is always an underlying sense of humor and/or a question of believability but this one is relentless. Even the cat and mouse scenes are frightening. Let's just put it this way, it's December 2014 and upon this first viewing, I'm creeped out. I think a lot of it too has to do with zero character development - either that or the 1981 dialogue was lost on me. It starts of painfully slow and you don't feel a connection with anyone which sort of places you directly in the shoes of the killer. Not sure if this was intentional but it's kind of genius. 7.5/10

This 1981 horror film stars Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman and Farley Granger. This begins in the 1940's during World War II where a young woman, Rosemary has just written an upsetting letter to her lover ending their relationship. Soon, she and her date are killed by him at a graduation dance. Thirty years later, the same killer wears a war outfit while hunting a group of college friends at a graduation dance. Dawson plays Pam MacDonald, Goutman plays her boyfriend, Mark London who is a Deputy Sheriff and Granger (Strangers on a Train) plays Sheriff, George Fraser. This isn't bad and Tom Savini's make-up effects are great as usual. If you like horror/slasher films, you should view this one.